OBSOLESCENCE OF MUSIC LITERATURE

In an update and extension of work by Longyear, the authors studied the median citation ages (a measure of synchronous obsolescence) of 9,850 references found in 37 journals in music education, music theory, and musicology. For six of the journals, the half lives (a measure of diachronous obsolescence) of citations to the journals were calculated. Results included average median citation ages of 14.0 years for references to journal articles and 16.0 years for references to all types of documents. Musicology obsolesced most slowly (median citation age equal to 22.0 years), followed by music education (14.3 years), and music theory (9.6 years). The average half life (7.0 years) for six journals was less than their corresponding average median citation age (27.0 years). However, there was gross, though not statistically significant, similarity between diachronous and synchronous data when they were analyzed using a procedure suggested by Stinson and Lancaster.